


I promise you I'll keep you safe (don't be afraid)

by klassmartin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season 3a, also struggles with her feelings for stiles, basically she's having a sucky day, lydia struggles with the possibility of losing people, this is an old ass episode now but I'm having feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klassmartin/pseuds/klassmartin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So basically, you want us to drown them and cross our fingers that they only die a little bit?”<br/>“The logistics are more complicated than that but, essentially, yes.”<br/>Lydia glances fearfully between Isaac and Deaton, trying to comprehend the task she has no choice but to undertake. “You do realise that’s insane.”<br/>- OR -<br/>Lydia has a really crappy twenty four hours in which she helps drown her friends, waits impatiently for them to wake the hell up, and then kind of gets kidnapped by the crazy English teacher who's trying to sacrifice parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I promise you I'll keep you safe (don't be afraid)

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't written in a really, REALLY long time but this has been playing on my mind for like eight months now and I finally finished it to... well, some kind of standard. It probably sucks. Sorry.  
> Title from I'll Keep You Safe by Sleeping At Last.  
> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own, which is probably a lot considering it's two am.

_Hour 1_

“So basically, you want us to drown them and cross our fingers that they only die a little bit?”

“The logistics are more complicated than that but, essentially, yes.”

Lydia glances fearfully between Isaac and Deaton, trying to comprehend the task she has no choice but to undertake. “You do realise that’s insane.”

“Do you see another choice?” Isaac shrugs. “We don’t have enough time to find a better plan.”

“You can’t seriously think that almost killing Allison, Scott and Stiles is a feasible plan. What if they don’t come back?” Oh God what if - “What if they die?! How do we stop Ms Blake without them?” Her expression is incredulous, sharp, panicked green eyes piercing through Isaac’s because _why does no one see this is a very bad idea._

“Lydia.” Turning, she finds Stiles has joined them in the treatment room, his gaze gentle and trained only on her. “It’s gonna be okay.”

The fight to keep her guard up falls apart the second he steps closer and his fingers graze her wrist. “You can’t know that, not for sure,” she whispers.

“I have to try. I can’t lose my dad.”

The pain on his face is enough to crush her reservations.

***

She hugs her best friend for longer than she’s ever hugged another person before. Allison either doesn’t notice the tears that land on her bare shoulder, or doesn’t comment.

As they separate, a feeling swells in her gut - steely determination, a titanium resolve, because her friends will not die today. Their parents will not die today. Not if Lydia has anything to do with it.

***

She helps to pushes him under with no struggle.

An infinity passes.

It doesn’t feel like the moment Jackson died in front of her. This moment is different; it’s not agonising or crushing but rather just a simple hollowness. The world seems to lose it’s sparkle, the colours fade, her lungs burn like she’s the one drowning, until -

Stiles’ eyes are open and stare at her, unseeing. The image burns onto the back of her eyelids.

* * *

_Hour 2_

Twenty minutes pass; no one moves.

“Why aren’t they waking up?” Her demanding tone shatters the silent tension and Isaac rolls his shoulders as if her speaking has given him permission to shift in his spot. Beside her, Deaton’s jaw clenches. Lydia stares down at the blue lips she’d kissed only a few hours before, remembers how warm they were against her skin. Her hands begin to shake. “Why aren’t they waking up?! You said it’d only be a few seconds!”

Still no one speaks, and a sob catches in her throat. Her hands scramble at his sopping shirt, trying to pull his dead weight to the surface. She won’t lose them, not when she’s only just found them; she hasn’t had the chance to tell them, to explain how grateful she is for them or that she loves -

"No!" Deaton fingers splay across Stiles' chest as he pushes him back down. "They can't come up, they have to stay under until they return!"

"They'll drown!" she shrieks, breath short and sharp. Her hands shake as she tries to claw away Deaton’s grip on Stiles, ice cold water splashing on her dress and seeping to her skin but she doesn’t feel it, doesn’t feel anything but the white hot fear of losing the only people who have ever given a damn about her, who she gives a damn about. She won’t lose them. She can't lose anymore people. Why don’t they understand? She glances to Isaac for support, but he's been in this game longer than her and his faith in the strange Druid is stronger, more blind, and he gulps in great amounts of air as his hands hover a few centimetres over Allison's shoulders. Allison. Her best friend, dead in a tub of ice and strange leaves. Scott on her other side. And Stiles. She's never been in his company where he's been quiet so long. Already she is surprised to find she misses his voice, his ramblings and clumsy movements.

 _Move, Stiles, please. Speak. Breathe. Live._  

* * *

_Hour 5_

The three substitute sacrifices lie perfectly still inside the harsh metal tubs.

Deaton was the first to move. He paces slowly around the room, gaze flickering between the teens and the floor. She doesn’t think she’s seen him anything other than perfectly calm and stoic before; maybe the man has feelings after all. Isaac sighs beside her, kneeling on the floor with his arms resting against Allison’s tub. His eyes are closed, but he twitches at noises she can’t hear, smells she can’t sense, and she wonders if he’s trying to somehow hear inside their minds; to know that they’re there, learning or doing or just existing.

At some stage, her hands have drifted back into the tub, and they hold Stiles’ face, her thumbs resting on his cheek bones. Can he feel her? Does he know she’s here? _I’m here. Come back to me._

“It’s been five hours.” Isaac raises his head tiredly but doesn’t look at either Lydia or Deaton. He turns away from Allison and faces Scott, hand hovering over the fellow beta’s chest like he’s trying to feel for a heart beat without contact. “What do we do?”

Deaton’s stride breaks. He’s quiet for a long moment. “More ice. We need to keep them cold.” As Deaton and Isaac pour the ice cubes, Lydia’s thumb brushes over Stiles’ cheekbone once. _I’m here,_ she thinks toward him, trying to make the thought travel through her hands and into his brain. _Deaton said I’m your tether and I can bring you back; I don’t know how but I’m trying, okay, I’m trying and I need you to try too. All of you. Come back and do what you’re supposed to do; save the world._  

* * *

_Hour 8_

“We should probably move them. It’s not fair to leave them like that, just… floating.”

Her head snaps up to Isaac who’s curled up in a corner, hand in his hair like he’s in physical pain. She wants to scream, rage at him for losing faith. Doesn’t pack mean anything to him? They can’t give up now; they’ve come too far. They have to stay strong, keep waiting, ready for when they’re needed to bring their friends back to life. But as she opens her mouth she sees the despair in his features, how hard it is to say those words out loud. There’s a shine to his eyes, tears clinging to his eyelashes. His cheeks are flushed red with the effort to remain calm and she thinks his eyes flicker gold for half a second.

“There’s still time.” Her voice is husky from little use. It’s gentle, a stark contrast to her intention a moment before. “They could still come back.”

Deaton just sighs.

***

Lydia can't help but think this could all be her own fault.

Maybe Deaton had been wrong. How could she be so bonded to Stiles? After all, why would she even be Stiles's emotional tether? A few months ago, if you had told Lydia she'd be the one that was supposed to bring him back after sacrificing himself to try and save his dad from being killed by their crazy magic English teacher, she would have laughed cruelly in said person's face. Then again, if someone had told her that, she'd have also probably found a way to have them locked away because what kind of horror slash fantasy film were they stuck in?

What if she couldn't bring him back, though? After all, there wasn't anything special about her. Surely, if she was capable of bringing someone back from the brink of death, it would be her best friend, Allison. Why would Deaton insist on her being Stiles's emotional tether? (What even  _is_ an emotional tether?) Perhaps she was just the last option. Yes. That must be it. After all, Stiles has never been Isaac's biggest fan, and she can't see how Stiles would have any form of a real relationship with he suspected Druid - maybe she was just the only viable option in a tough spot.

Something hot and unwelcome tells her that isn't the case at all.

* * *

_Hour 9_

“We need to accept the facts here. They’re gone. The three people that are vital to anything we manage to make work as a plan are gone and… And we need to come up with our own now.”

There’s a new determination to Isaac’s tone now Deaton has gone for more ice. He watches Lydia, hovering over Allison, combing her tangled hair with numb fingers. “Isaac…”

“It’s been nearly ten hours. You can’t seriously tell me you think they’re coming back.”

She flinches, hand stilling. “They’re strong. They can handle it.”

Isaac steps closer and she glares, warning him to keep his distance. “Lydia, you’re easily the smartest person I know, and I also know _you_ know how long it takes hypothermia to set in. How long someone can be clinically dead before being brought back.”

She shakes her head sharply in denial, voice thick with emotion. “This isn’t the same. Those rules don’t apply.”

But Isaac keeps pushing. “Yes they do! I know Scott’s a werewolf, but Allison and Stiles are human. They can’t heal like Scott. They can’t just magically come back from this, and honestly, I don’t think Scott can either.”

Lydia is so angry she almost stamps her feet. “How dare you -”

There’s a splash in the water.

Scott’s hand raises towards them.

Isaac is there in a blink of an eye, yelling his name and vibrating with anxiety. Lydia glances desperately between Allison and Stiles for signs of life, of anything but what she knows in her gut will still be there - the bodies of her friends, lying in their deathbeds.

***

“Explain it to me again.”

“His hand rose out of the water and then fell back down after about a minute,” Lydia says after a heavy sigh, hands tangled in her hair as she paces in front of Deaton. He’s frowning at Scott, mind ticking at a frantic pace. “Nothing else happened. We tried to wake him but he was unresponsive.”

Isaac continues, “He wasn’t pointing or signalling or anything; his hand was just kinda… there.”

Silence stretches. The fear that has constantly flowed through her blood for the past ten hours - ten days, ten weeks, hell probably since getting trapped in the high school way back when her main priorities weren’t just surviving and trying not to find more dead bodies - keeps proving her wrong when she thinks it couldn’t get more potent, like right this second, when she knows that Deaton hasn’t got a clue as to what is happening anymore, that even his mysterious and vast knowledge of the supernatural underworld can’t provide an answer for this one.

* * *

_Hour 12_

At some point, Lydia falls into a listless sleep.

Images flicker past her eyes, so quick she can’t focus on one before another takes it place. She hears heavy breathing, indistinct voices and whispers, a cry for help. There are bright flashes of light followed by extreme darkness, what looks like fireflies glitter across a picture, her picture, the one of the tree she keeps drawing, glimpses of red and green and something clattering to the ground.

She jolts awake to the sound of a door slamming, Deaton wincing right beside it as he holds three steaming mugs in his hands. He smiles guiltily at her as she catches her breath, handing her a chipped black mug and passing the blue one to Isaac on the other side of the room. “Still no movement?” Deaton asks, leaning against the steel counter, eyes intent on the almost frozen teens. Lydia shakes her head, toeing off her shoes and shifting to a more comfortable position to drink her tea. It’s been two hours since the shred of hope from Scott twitching had been presented to them, and she was clinging to it with everything she had. Now, with the vivid dream still playing across her eyelids, she feels it slip away.

From her position on the floor, she can see the the arch of Allison’s nose, the tuft of Scott’s hair that had dried straight up, and Stiles’ hand, still slung over the edge of the tub, the misshapen Sheriff’s badge glinting in the harsh fluorescent lights. With a deep breath she allows herself to think clinically, to recall the various medical journals she has studied in her spare time; how at twelve hours, the extremities will be turning blue as rigour mortis sets in, the lividity settling the blood towards the back of the body, gas beginning to build and distort the appearance. Her eyes settle on Stiles’ fingers, a tiny wave of relief washing over her at the lack of blue. Maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe it means she shouldn’t lose hope just yet.

* * *

_Hour 14_

Ten minutes previously, in a move that stunned Lydia into submission, Isaac’s head settled in her lap.

Five minutes after that, she had relaxed and began what can only be described as petting him.

It occurs to her how vulnerable the new beta is, how drastically his life has changed in just a few short months; losing his (albeit monstrous) father, becoming a fugitive, taking on a whole new world of dramatics and crazy turns. Now, he’s in the same position as her; about to lose the friends he hasn’t gotten to chance to know, to appreciate properly. They haven’t had enough _time._

“Do you think they’re dead yet?” Isaac’s voice jars her out of her thoughts and she’s surprised by the wetness on her cheeks.

“What?’ she croaks in horror.

“Melissa, the Sheriff, Mr Argent. Maybe Ms Blake didn’t wait. Maybe she’s sacrificed them already.”

“No.” A sureity unlike anything she’s felt before courses through her. “They’re alive. We still have time before the full moon.”

“We have six hours and no back up plan,” Isaac says bluntly, hand drifting over her knee. “What do we do if they don’t wake up?”

Lydia keeps her eyes trained on the tubs, the three things her life now revolves around. Maybe if she keeps looking, they’ll come back. If she looks away… “This’ll work. It has to.”

There’s a long pause. “I don’t want to lose them either.”

Lydia can only whisper, “I know.”

***

“I kissed him,” she admits to Isaac, who is now sitting beside her, elbows against his knees. “Stiles had a panic attack and I kissed him.”

“Well, I’m sure you fulfilled many a teenage fantasy for him by doing so,” Isaac replies, humour lacing his tone. she thinks she sees Allison twitch, but puts it down to the lights flickering.

Lydia chuckles, memories of Stiles and his crush now fond and treasured. “I told him it was because he held his breath.” Another bubble of laughter rises in her chest. “I said I read that it helps. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?! That’s like, the opposite of helping!” Her laughter now rings freely inside the dejected room, tearing out of her like she’s flicked the switch and become clinically insane within a second. “He was just so… so sad! And I just wanted him to be happy!” A sob. “Everything is so awful and- and I couldn’t bear to see him s-so broken…” Tears fall freely down her cheeks and a warm arm wraps around her as she cries. “It’s not fair. None of this is fair.”

Deaton crouches in front of her with a issue box, and for the second time that day she realises he might not be the robot she has always imagined him to be. “She won’t get away with this, I promise you, Lydia. No matter what happens in the next couple of hours, no matter how long it takes, I swear, she will pay for everything she has done.”

And Lydia has not a single doubt in her mind that this is the truth.

* * *

_Hour 16_

“The sun is beginning to set.” Deaton stares at the sky as its splashed with what eerily looks like blood. “They don’t have much time left.”

“Well I wish they’d hurry this all up,” Isaac grumbles as his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. It’s a new sound, one that causes them all to stare dumbly at the device before Isaac pulls it and stares at the screen. “It’s Cora.”

As he disappears around the corner to answer it, Lydia slumps back against the cabinet. Her bones ache and her stiff muscles demand to be noticed, her lethargic limbs protesting as she tries to find a comfortable way to sit. Everything in this vets is too hard- there’s nothing to ease the feel of cold concrete beneath her, or the blunt edges of the stainless steel handles trying to fuse into her spinal cord. She misses her bed, her spot on the sofa, hell even the chairs at school that do nothing for her posture. She misses normality, a time when the vets was just somewhere she took Prada for his check-ups and she didn’t have to live everyday knowing a man who had attacked her in the middle of the lacrosse field had then controlled her from beyond the grave. _Ugh,_ she thinks bitterly, _if only I hadn’t thought being nice to the new girl would be a good idea. Maybe then I wouldn’t be in this -_

The slap of water against the ground has her jumping off the ground as three bodies gulp in oxygen, scrambling out of lukewarm water with this weird expression like, like they’re alive, and this can’t be real but it is because they’re standing there, Allison and Scott and Stiles _oh god they’re alive they’re here they’re not dead they’re -_

“I saw it, I know where it is!” It’s like an angel is singing to her, and never before has she been so happy to hear someone talking, her heart is hammering in her chest as she hungrily takes in them all, Scott gripping the tub and Allison’s eyes searching and finding Lydia’s and Stiles breathing, he’s _breathing_ and she wants to kiss him again, the need so strong she almost completely misses what they’re saying.

“We passed it, there was this stump, this huge tree; it’s not huge any more, it was cut down, but it was still big though, very big -“ He’s rambling and she loves it, loves seeing his hand flutter as he tries to convey what he means through the clattering of his teeth, loves how blissfully unaware they are but she doesn’t care for just that moment, because _they’re alive._

“I was there too!” Allison is saying, and Lydia almost chokes because it’s the voice that’s lit up the past few months of her life with laughter and happiness and a realisation as to what friendship, really, truly is -

“We can find it,” Scott insists.

Lydia finally lets herself exhale. Maybe they all still stand a chance.

Allison’s eyes are taking them in, ever observant, and Lydia can only glance at her before looking at the puddles of water on the floor. She doesn’t know. None of them know. “What?” Allison asks as she holds herself.

“You guys were out a long time.” Lydia almost jumps, so focussed on her friends returning from the dead that she hadn’t even heard Isaac return to the room.

As the three newly returned teens come to terms with the news of their four hour deadline, Lydia rolls her shoulders, preparing to… Something. She’s not sure yet, so she sets about retrieving towels, as large and as many as she can find, handing them out. At Stiles, she pauses for just a fraction of a moment, his ice cold fingers against hers making her start. His eyes soften and she kind of wants to hug him, to let him know how happy she is to see him again, and the look in his eyes makes her think maybe he wants it too. Stiles glances at the angry red line on her neck and presses his lips into a fine line. In response, she finds her fingertips ghosting up his arm, curving around his elbow and squeezing. He nods at whatever message she is trying to convey to him, and she lets her grip continue for just a moment longer before stepping towards Allison, already wrapped in her towel and leaning beside Isaac. The brunette envelopes her in a hug that makes her feel warm right down to her toes. Lydia doesn’t care about the damp seeping through her own dress; she only cares that she can finally hold her best friend again.

* * *

_Hour 24_

It’s been a really fucking weird day.

That’s all she wants to say on the subject of the past few hours.

She’d gotten the call about two hours ago that the plan had worked; Ms Blake was dead by Deucalion’s hand - well, claws - and all three parents had been found alive and well. The Alpha pack had been defeated, and Scott had, rather unsurprisingly, become a true alpha (not that Scott had volunteered this information freely; Derek had swiped the phone despite his depleted abilities and - rather uncharacteristically - announced the news quite proudly. Lydia had always known that somewhere, deep, deep, deep down that Derek had a soft side for Scott and his friends.)

Aiden has left the vets now, the tiny kiss he pressed to her wrist an hour before still humming under her skin. Maybe she can change him. Maybe he doesn’t have to be such a literal bad boy anymore. She wonders if he can be a good guy, and can’t stop herself thinking how he can’t be, not like Stiles is. Stiles is probably the best guy there is. (The thought terrifies her and she pushes it promptly inside the label less box in her mind where everything she finds scary about Stiles ends up, including how scary it is that the box seems so damn full.)

The point is, her head is pounding, and all she wants to do is sleep for the next sixty years or so.

“I’m fine, seriously, would you please relax, dad?” Stiles voice is like music to her ears and she jumps off the examination table, racing towards the waiting area. “I’ll come to the hospital in a minute, I just need to get -“

Her arms throw themselves around his shoulders of their own accord and she presses her cheek against his neck, almost whimpering at how good it feels to have him there, warm and solid and holding her back. “Lydia,” he finishes in a breath, and she’s pretty sure that they’re both going to leave bruises with how hard they’re gripping each other but she can’t find it in herself to care.

“It’s over,” she says incredulously. “It’s really over. We did it.”

Stiles pulls back just enough to see her face, smiling softly at her and stroking her matted hair. “Everything’s okay.”

Except it’s not, because now she’s able to see him she can see the blood clinging to his hair line. “What the -“ She holds his face in her hands and tries to move it to get a better look, but he wraps gentle fingers around her wrists and tilts his head to catch her eye.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing.”

“Nothing? You’re bleeding, Stiles -“

“Flesh wound, it barely even stings.” His reassurance is tempting to take but her nerves are too frazzled to calm down completely. “Is Cora still here?”

“She just left, probably heard you coming.” Lydia tears her gaze away from the dried blood and checks the rest of him for any obvious sign of injury. “What about everyone else?”

“I’ve just dropped Isaac, Scott and Melissa at their house, the rest are at the hospital. I was on my way but wanted to -“ He pauses, and his hands brush down her arms. They’re warm now, finally, and she closes her eyes, trying to memorise the sensation. When she opens them, she smiles as convincingly as she can. “I’m okay.” Stiles doesn’t believe her but doesn’t comment. “Would you like me to take you home?”

“No.” It’s tempting; her body craves sleep more than air and she wants a fresh change of clothes, but she also knows that nearly everyone she loves is at that hospital right now, and she could do with a little more reassurance that they somehow all made it out of this nightmare alive. “I’ll go to the hospital with you.”

“Okay.” He’s about to step away when she grabs his hands, lacing their fingers together and testing the new weight. “Is something wrong?”

The thought of kissing him again passes through her mind once more. “I’m just really glad you’re not dead.”

“Hey,” he whispers gently, pulling her into another hug, “I’d never leave you, you know that, right?” And funnily enough, she does.


End file.
